jmacnaughtan

It depends on the fruit, but I'd just normally do a straight swap. Replace all the milk with the same weight of juice. Some (for example lemon juice) will thicken up a bit more, some a bit less, so you'd need to play around with it.

Getting away from the raw vegetables, I always do a fine brunoise for the onions, carrots, celeriac and garlic in a bolognese sauce. It's therapeutic and looks better

Those do not look greasy enough to be king cakes

You know, you could probably get a decent approximation by mixing Bovril with liquid smoke.

Drinks could work as a theme- if single malts were the black collection, there are plenty of choices to use for white. If you could bear to cook with it, a Champagne white chocolate ganache could work well.

Seems like everybody's veering off towards a savoury angle. While this is a trendy approach, it might be worth looking at fillings which are associated with sweet foods and drinks: - Pina Colada - Rice pudding - Milkshake - Banana - Marshmallow/nougat - Lemon meringue - Milk - Lychee - Mint Imperial - Candyfloss And more.

In general, does it make a difference if you sear at room temperature or directly from the fridge? I would have thought that it'd give you more sear time if they were chilled, but there may be other consequences I haven't thought of.

Looks tasty, but I can't say I'm familiar with the concept of "leftover Champagne". Did you make your own puff pastry? That's quite an undertaking.

I've always done both together, but I don't think it matters. All you're really doing is getting the sugar partly dissolved and the butter the right consistency to mik with the eggs. A bigger issue is incorporating too much air- frequently, there's not enough flour/eggs/other stabilizer to support the extra volume, so it can collapse.

You might get a better result simply by replacing the milk in the anglaise for fruit juice or purée, adding a little more if you need to thin it out. With jam, you're going to add a lot of sugar and not necessarily a lot of flavour.

Crepes is right, it should be fine in the fridge. Let it come up to room temperature before eating it though- refrigerator-cold ganache is not very pleasant.

For desserts (especially more advanced ones), I'd much prefer a detailed recipe. I don't generally use recipes on the internet as much more than guidelines though... Unfortunately, I find that there are often glaring errors in professional level books, too. This is the reason why I only keep my Francisco Migoya books around for the photos and general inspiration; half of the recipes tend to fall flat.

Where I used to work, they'd dry out the vanilla pods used from pastry cream and mousses, then cook them up with the nuts and sugar when they made praliné paste. You don't get a stunning amount of vanilla flavour in it, but it rounds it out a little and, well, you're just using up something that would get thrown away anyway. I'm drying out the ones I use at home, and plan to just pulverize them with an equal weight (or probably more if necessary) of sugar. I haven't tried it before, but it might turn out to be a usable product. If anyone has any better uses for used vanilla pods, I'm all ears

Frequently you put your used vanilla pod in the sugar, so you're giving it a second use. The sugar doesn't get a particularly strong flavour anyway, it's just used to enhance things a little. If you're using fresh, whole, unused and unscraped beans, all that might happen is your pod will dry out and the sugar will take on a mild vanilla flavour. In other words, I wouldn't worry about it.

They sound fine. I'd just taste them, and if you like them then use them. The % in chocolate refers to both cocoa solids and butter together, but doesn't give any indication on the proportion. In this way, a 70% chocolate could be 35/35, 25/45 etc. The rest is generally sugar and milk solids (for milk and white).

Maybe you could try using meatier pieces of meat, or even browning them off first. In fact, you could probably just not add any water at the beginning. You'd get some initial browning, and that would help flavour the fat.

My bad, I stand corrected

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you're talking about grattons, a snack food particularly beloved in Lyon. Lardons are small pieces of bacon, over here anyway.

It looks like the Mexican lard has been done over a higher heat, probably leaving the crunchy bits in as well for a long time. That way, the fat would be more likely to infuse with the crispy bits' colour and flavour. It could of course be from another type of pig though, but I don't think it would make a difference. I disagree with you here- from what I understand, Shelby has unrendered fat instead of lard. This will contain a decent amount of water (unlike lard), so can easily spoil. I'd throw it in the freezer until you need it.

Still hard to top butter as a sauce-enhancer though

Lemon and tarragon go well together. It may work with orange.

If you're getting scrambled eggs, it's because you're overheating the sauce. Try to remove it from the heat when it's thick enough, or add some starch to the sauce to stabilize it. For rich and creamy, try reducing double cream before you add it. Also, use butter. Lots and lots of butter.

Sorry, the linguist in me had to correct you... Fléau Boréaux And a couple of others. You're probably right about everything else though.

I'm not sure- the recipe calls for peeled and deseeded tomatoes, so you're taking a lot of the moisture out of them. If you use canned tomatoes, you should deseed them too. I don't think I'd bother roasting them though, maybe just pat them dry and use the juice from the tin instead of the water.

Hi, welcome to eGullet. With wine, for me it's better to start with styles that you like, then branch out. Which styles do you enjoy? If you like big reds, you should try some southern Côtes du Rhône. If you prefer dry whites, maybe southern Burgundy or Touraine. And drink as much good Champagne as possible